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A
product of the sandlots of Southwestern Alberta (home was the
small Crow's Nest Pass community of Hillcrest, in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains), Walasko
gained recognition as a standout hurler while barely into his
teenage years.
"
... Willie Walasko, the 16-year-old mound marvel from Hillcrest, who
this year is toiling on the hill for Pincher Creek Dominoes, had himself
quite an afternoon last Sunday.
Pitching in a regular Crow's Nest Pass Baseball League tussle against
Natal-Michel, the young pitching sensation breezed a third strike past
21 would-be sluggers. Willie, who can be found pitching most every
night of the week, practicing to perfect his control and develop his
right arm, had his curve ball working close to perfection and his fast
ball steaming as he mowed down Red Sox batters in monotonous fashion. He
struck out five hitters in succession during one stretch and fanned the
last seven men to face him. He retired the side on strikes in four
innings and chalked up no less than two strikeouts in every frame but
one.
It was
not Willie's top strike-out performance -- he whiffed 24 batters during
a juvenile game two years ago -- but when you consider that he won't be
17 until July 20, that's pretty fancy chucking for a youngster who was
facing senior batters. Willie, who stands six feet and weights 165
pounds, has been throwing a ball since he was eight years old and last
season, at the tender age of 15, was taking his turn on the hill in
senior company and 10 strikeouts a game wasn't unusual for him.
It's still too early to know how far he will travel along the road that
leads to professional baseball. But Willie has a burning ambition
to become a big league hurler and if he turns in many more performances
like last Sunday, then it would not be surprising if big league scouts
came knocking at his door." (Arian Pontarollo, Crow
Corner, Lethbridge Herald, June 20, 1952)
Walasko, with considerable
experience in Senior ball,
gained provincial recognition in 1953 as he led the Pincher
Creek Chinooks to the Alberta Junior championship. In late
season tournaments and the playoffs alone, he won nine games in
the space of a few weeks.
  In the playoffs, there was a
13-inning, five-hitter in which he fanned twenty and walked
none. In the Foremost tournament he tossed back-to-back
shutouts. In a classic match up in the Southern Alberta
final, Walasko threw a two-hitter with 14 strikeouts as Pincher
Creek downed the Lethbridge Junior Miners 2-1. (Dave Jones of the
Miners allowed just one hit -- a double by Walasko.) In the
Alberta final, Walasko was the winner in both games as the
Chinooks swept Edmonton (a lineup which included future NHL hockey
starts Norm Ullman and John Bucyk).
Walasko was one of two Alberta
athletes invited to spend time at a Brooklyn Dodger camp in Great
Falls, Montana.
"When I was eighteen, just
getting out of high school, I was approached by the Dodgers and
Detroit, but the parents wouldn't hear of it," said Walasko.
"The schooling came first."
 Fresh
from his success as a junior, Walasko suited up with the Carmangay
Eagles of the Foothills-Wheatbelt League in 1954. He didn't
skip a beat. In the season opener, he tossed a two-hitter
and fanned seventeen. Later, he'd add a no-hitter. Not bad
for a kid just out of his teens. "I don't remember the
no-hitter," said Walasko, "but I recall beating Granum
because they were the powerhouse at the time."
 George
Wesley, remembering the kid who beat him in '54, landed the ace
righthander for his Granum White Sox for the 1955 season and
Walasko would star for the club over four summers before taking a
spin at pro ball. While records are incomplete, Walasko
appears to have finished 13-6 (league, tournament and exhibition
games) in '54 and 14-4 the following season. While impressive, it
just set the stage for one of the most dominant seasons ever by a
pitcher on the prairies.
  Newspaper
accounts report his overall 1956 record as 21-2 in twenty-eight
appearances. Walasko started twenty games completing
eighteen of them. He had a
no-hitter, a pair of one-hitters, and two,
two-hitters. In the prairies' short season, the right-hander
was on the hill for nearly 200 innings.
After two more seasons as the ace
of the White Sox, Walasko, whose parents had turned down an
opportunity for their pitching phenom to turn professional as a
teenager, decided to take a spin in the pros.
 Walasko
set out for the Jack Rossiter Baseball School in Cocoa,
Florida. (Left -- Rossiter & Walasko) The
lone Canadian in the camp was the first player to be offered a pro
contract. Walasko signed with the Washington Senators who
sent him to Missoula Timberjacks of the Pioneer League for the
1959 season.
Playing with the worst club in the
circuit (it was a  Washington
farm club after all) Walasko still finished among the ERA leaders
(fifth) and pitched 189 innings in 34 games. "We had the
worst team in the league, just a lousy team, the worst park, which
was typical of the whole Washington system," said
Walasko, "Riding the buses I could
see that the organization wasn't going to improve a heck of a lot.
It wasn't what I thought it was cracked up to be." And,
at $235 a month, it was a pay cut from Granum.
The Canadian moundsman must have
been a novelty to his American teammates-- a college graduate
who listed his hobbies as classical music, mountain hiking and
hockey! Walasko even enjoyed the bus travel through the
mountainous areas of Montana and Idaho and used the time to learn
some Spanish from his Cuban teammates while he taught them a
little English.
The end of the '59 season brought
an offer from the Washington Senators of a promotion to the
Charlotte Hornets of the Class A, Sally League. But, the
prairies beckoned.
 So,
it was back to Alberta in 1960 to anchor the pitching staff
of the new Calgary entry in the revamped Western Canada
League. Even at this higher level of competition, Walasko
finished at 9-3 (the top pitcher won 11) and was fourth in ERA at
3.18. As Calgary folded after just one season, the Alberta
native was back with George Wesley in 1961 with the
Lethbridge White Sox. Among other things, he had a 23 inning
scoreless streak and won his lone playoff start allowing no earned
runs as Lethbridge upset the heavily favoured Saskatoon Commodores
in the final. (While he pitched mainly in home games for
Lethbridge, he did a little extra-curricular mound duty with the
Calgary Orphans of the Alberta Senior circuit.)
" ... With
all the bonus baseball contracts they've been dishing out the past few
years, you get to wondering why there hasn't been a count who's seen a
good prospect in Willie Walasko and done something about it.
The
stylish righthander, who's been knocking around Alberta semi-pro and
amateur ranks for more than a few years, is still one of the best in these
parts. And he's getting better.
Down
Lethbridge way they'll tell you Willie is having his best year yet in
Western Canada Baseball League company. And from his performance
here Thursday against the Saskatoon Commodore power pack, what they'd tell
you could more than likely be rated an understatement.
Walasko's
sparkling five-hit shut-out of the Commodores ended a six-game drought the
Lethbride White Sox of George Wesley were battling in games against the
Hub City nine. And it was only the second time this season that the
Saskatoon offence has been barred from the scoreboard ... This latest
effort has also added another nine innings to a new string of gooseggs
Willie has rung up. The Lethbridge hurler, who resides in Calgary,
has now fired 20 consecutive scoreless innings in action involving the
WCBL ... Possibility even more excited about his Thursday endeavor than
Willie himself, was Vic Stasiuk. "This guy is the greatest,"
beamed last year's Calgary Buffalo manager following his semi-final upset.
"He's never been better."
Stasiuk,
of course, is a coach with the Sox this season." (Larry Wood,
Calgary Herald, July 28, 1961)
The summer of 1962 was the first in
a decade where Walasko failed to toe the rubber. It was a
forced break as the Western Canada loop was dismantled and
semi-pro ball took a hiatus. He remained in baseball,
however, managing a junior team in Calgary.
He never suffered a major
injury. "Nothing to make me sit out. I did get tendonitis
in my shoulder in 1963 or 64, but I continued to play."
  When
the Western Canada League bounced back in 1963 and 1964, Walasko was back
on the hill for the Calgary Giants in a league comprised mainly of college players (Tug
McGraw, Nelson Briles and Tim Cullen among them) hoping to strut their stuff for major league
scouts. He'd be in the Calgary lineup for the two seasons of the
new WCBL (he opened the '64 season going 6-0). And, when that, too, would fold, Walasko was enticed to
carry on "just for exercise" for the Calgary Orphans and
Odeons of the Alberta Major Baseball League.
" ...
The stars of the league-leading Calgary Odeons of the Edmonton-Calgary
baseball loop are a pair of old Granum pros, Bill Fennessey and Willie
Walasko ... if that doesn't stir up a memory or two for George Wesley,
nothing will." (Lethbridge Herald, June 10, 1967)
He continued as
an often dominant pitcher for four more seasons, finally stepping
off the mound for good at the end of the 1968 season.
 
(Left : 1967 - Walasko displays his pitching form to Al Johnston,
manager of the Calgary Odeons.)
(Right : 1968 - his final season in
prairie ball, pitching for the Odeons of the Alberta Major
Baseball league)
In 1971, Walasko returned to the
field as pitching coach for a new Calgary team, the Cubs.
Walasko, who worked in saw mills
and the Wesley ranch (among other things) to
finance his way through college, became involved in
commercial and light industrial construction in the late 50s.
Bill met the lovely Patricia while he was playing pro ball in
Missoula. September, 2007 would have marked Bill and Pat's
47th wedding anniversary. Bill passed away in February, 2007.
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